Facebook Changed Your Email Address (Here’s How to Change it Back)

by Mel

You probably didn’t notice because who the hell looks at their profile, but Facebook changed the email address listed on your page. It is now an @facebook.com address. You’ve actually always had this account for messages. In other words, when someone hits “send message” on your Facebook page and writes you a message on Facebook, it has always been sent via this email address. Makes sense: you’re sending an email and your account needs a dedicated email address. That is all well and good. Prior to this point, you probably didn’t know this email address, so you couldn’t give it out to people to serve as your primary online email account. But now it’s listed, so not only can you, but Facebook is hoping that you will use it for all your communication needs.

Let me explain the problem I have with this (beyond the fact that they changed my profile without giving me a heads up. Then again, if you recall with the TOS, you don’t have control over your Facebook page; they have control. That’s the trade off — you get free access and they get to harvest information).

Facebook changed your profile to now list your FACEBOOK email address instead of your REGULAR email address. Which means that the communication stays on their site instead of going into your regular inbox. It also means that if someone wants to email you, they can no longer go to your profile page and grab your email address and write you directly. They need to write you through Facebook, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t send any sensitive information via Facebook messages. I don’t make plans with people, I don’t give out personal information. Conversations may start on Facebook, but I always then take them off Facebook and continue them via my regular email account. And yeah, part of that is due to Facebook’s TOS and how they’ve made changes like this in the past. It diminishes my trust.

At this moment in time, if someone grabs your email address from your profile and sends you an email, you’ll get it on Facebook. They don’t even need to be on Facebook. They can send you an email and it shows up on your Facebook account. And frankly, I don’t want people emailing me on Facebook because it’s a non-secure connection. Call me squeamish. In fact, I don’t want to post that Facebook email address ever because I don’t want people writing me there. Please don’t use that email address. I find it creepy as all get-out that someone listed an email address (that they set up for me) without my permission, inviting my friends to write me there.

So, what can you do if you’re unhappy with this too?

Go into “about” or your profile, and click edit.

Scroll down (right side of page) to contact info. You’ll see your Facebook email address listed as your email address (there is a chance it hasn’t rolled out on your account yet. If that’s the case, wait a day and try this again).

Click edit.

On the far right of that edit box, you’ll see an open circle or a circle with a line through it along with a little down arrow. You want your regular email address to have the open circle so it’s listed. You want the Facebook one to have a closed circle so it’s hidden from your profile.

Call me old-fashioned and crazy, but I like to have some say over how people communicate with me. And Facebook messages, not a way I care to use as a primary method of communication.

Please pass along a link to this post to your friends so they’ll change their address too. Since, you know, the profile used to be a great place to get someone’s email address and write them directly. And, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to write you on Facebook if I have to say anything beyond what I’d gladly place up in public.

Thanks for this, Mel. I just went and tried to change my husband’s FB email back and it wouldn’t let me … “Something went wrong. We’re working on getting this fixed as soon as we can. You may be able to try again.” You bet I will try again.

Thanks for the heads up on this. I would have eventually noticed this, been slightly annoyed and searched til I found where I could change it back. Instead, I check my reader and you have all the info in one spot for me. Thanks! 🙂

I noticed the change. I guess it doesn’t bother me, because I don’t really want people searching me on Facebook and emailing me directly. I believe I already had my real email address hidden. But then, this is because I had a mild stalker and I didn’t want him having my regular email address. It’s interesting what people choose to protect and what they choose to expose…

Thanks for the heads up. I only have my email visible/available to Friends anyway, and as they can message me, it didn’t make much of a change. But I did change it back. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to use Facebook as their email. As an email client it is incredibly clunky.

Is all this overblown? Facebook revealed an address that they have assigned to you and on which they rely behind the scenes. And we are going to give them grief for this? The new address is only for FB messages. My old addresses are still on my profile, and the one I marked “Primary” is still my primary address. Your email is not going through Facebook servers as a result of this change. What’s all the fuss?

@ Naked Truth – I don’t know if it is secure or not secure to send messages via FB (I do use FB to send messages as I feel it’s the easiest, maybe now I’ll think again..), but when it is done behind my back (and after reading this post and checking, my regular e-mail was marked as not to be seen) it gives me a sense of something not right being done. You (FB..) changed my e-mail account? Why don’t you at least tell me? (and hmmm.. you do have my other e-mail account for doing so)

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Who is Mel?

Melissa, otherwise known as Mel, The Stirrup Queen, and most recently nicknamed Lollipop Goldstein, has been blogging since 2006. In addition to STIRRUP QUEENS, she also writes the daily Lost and Found (LFCA). She also writes for BlogHer. You can join her on StumbleUpon. She's known to Twitter about her wonky ovaries.